Are you also struggling with Data in your company? Is the tremendous transformation
hype hitting your organization and yourself too? If so, then this the right blog for you.
I will show you how to properly approach to this topic, with the needed confidence and
without headache thanks to a simple 8 steps guide on how to get this done correctly.
If you also have the feeling that the amount of data increased a lot in the past years with data being completely unstructured because no one really took good care of them until now, well you are probably right, and you are for sure not alone.
Your company is run by people who were there before the ”Datalization” (not sure if I invented this term or if I heard it somewhere :-)) but this is the era of Data and this needs at least some discussion. Some of your colleagues
cannot, or don’t want to understand the importance of data, as all they care about is business. So
if you are reading this blog, it’s most probably your duty to let them understand that data ‚is the
business‘ of today and already the business of tomorrow.
You don’t want to be the only guy still riding a horse saying that cars are just a hype and will
never take over.
If you want to make sure your people will understand the concept, don’t even think to start too
big, but eventually just do some mock up start to deliver something. A comprehensive project to
bring in real world the “Datalization” will probably take you 1, most probably 1,5 years (Don’t
stay with IT as there is no budget there :-))
Most probably, as for any other big thing, you need to start small.
Choose a small project, keeping the focus on the pig picture in mind. I know it is difficult and
you are thinking „I don t even know what kind of Data I have therefore I surely don t know any
good use of these numbers right now”. Don’t worry, this will come.
Let me give you some hints though. An example could be to use data to do a personalized
marketing communication. In this way you would know for instance what a user ordered
yesterday and you don’t send him the same advertisement today.
Another example of how you can use the data is to try to predict the products running out of
stock.
The aim is to go from a “data anarchy” to have a harmony of data’ usage in your company.
Your next question would be, how??? (Indeed, I can read your mind :-))
You need a Data Strategy!
1. Data Usage
- Which business questions can be answered with the data?
- Identify and evaluate the Business Problem (Independently if you have a concrete business need or not, having structured Data will help you in retrieving the information as soon you will have the right Business question.)
- Get the right business question and you will get the right answer
2. Get the right people so you don’t need to know everything
- Assign ownership (Build a RACI)
- Ask yourself, who is responsible for the data? Which are the roles?
- Find a name for each person of this list:
- Project lead
- Business expert (Business knowledge)
- Data Scientist (value: business insight)
- Data engineer (Providing data companywide)
- Data Architect (Responsible for the company wide data architecture)
- Steering committee (stakeholder for strategic decision)
- External consultant (strategic consulting)
You want to know more, read: The key roles and function in a Data Analyst Team
3. Define which data you have
- You need a data overview:
- Ask yourself, which data exist and where I can find them within the company?
- Find all source of data you have in the company
- Think about systems like SAP but don’t forget Access or Excel etc
4. Check the quality of your data
- Data quality checkpoint
- What does the data contain and what is the quality of these figures?
- Data management
- How compatible is the data in different silos
5. Clean up the data
- Data compliance
- Is data privacy & security guaranteed everywhere?
- Look for and remove duplicates along with irrelevant data
- Look for and remove structural errors (N/A & Not applicable)
- This should be an ongoing process!
6. Define a clear process on how Data entry should work
- Data Governance
- What is the process to get the Data?
- How is data documented?
- Efficient, flexible, standardized & automated access
7. Categorize the data and store it
- MAP every kind of data asset
- Get Metadata
- Access your data easily and faster
- Decide if to move from On Premise to Cloud technology
8. Prioritize the data
- Define which data source has priority on the other
- Define what you want to achieve with those data
- Align with the Business outcomes
Would you like to have more insight on Data strategy, than follow this link „Data strategy – Wikitia“
Keep tuned for my next blog, „How to set up a DATA WHS in 48„
